The Government stated that the GRU was being fully sanctioned for "reckless" acts, including the attack in the city of Salisbury against Sergei Skripal, a former Soviet agent who had defected to the United Kingdom and was released as part of a spy exchange in 2010.
Skripal and his daughter Yulia fell seriously ill in March 2018 after being exposed to the nerve agent Novichok, which had been smeared on the doorknob of the former spy's front door. A police officer, Nick Bailey, also fell ill. All three survived. Novichok is a class of military-grade nerve agents developed by the Soviet Union at the end of the Cold War.
Three months later, the attack had a collateral fatal victim. Dawn Sturgess, a 44-year-old British woman, and her partner Charlie Rowley collapsed after coming across a discarded perfume bottle containing the Novichok poison. Sturgess had sprayed the bottle's contents on her wrist and died days later; Rowley survived.
Former Supreme Court judge Anthony Hughes, who led the investigation into Sturgess's death, concluded that the attack on Sergei Skripal "must have been authorized at the highest level" by Putin. Hughes stated that Sturgess was "an innocent victim of an attempt by officers of a Russian state organization to carry out a street assassination in Salisbury using a highly toxic substance."
Sturgess's family pointed out that she died as a "direct result of Russia's cruel and cynical attempt to assassinate Sergei Skripal." However, the family also criticized British authorities for the lack of a proper risk assessment for Skripal, which "endangered the British public and led to Dawn's death."
Russia has denied any involvement in the poisonings. In 2018, Putin dismissed Sergei Skripal as "just a scumbag" of no interest to the Kremlin. The UK has accused three alleged GRU agents of the attack, but there are few prospects of bringing them to trial as the UK does not have an extradition agreement with Russia. In addition to the sanctions, Britain named eight alleged GRU military cyber intelligence officers.